Three killed in bomb and gun attacks in Kabul after mortar shells barrage

S e p a r a t e b o m b a n d g u n attacks left at least three dead in Afghanistan's capital yesterday, police said, a day after a barrage of mortar shells shook the city.

A sticky bomb attached to an armoured vehicle in northern Kabul killed t wo people and i njur e d a t l e a s t t wo o t he r s , according to Ferdaws Faramar z , a s p o ke s man f o r t h e Kabul police chief.

Mr Faramarz also said an Afghan government prosecutor was shot dead in eastern Kabul.

The prosecutor was on his way to his office when he was attacked in the Kart-e Now district, the spokesman said. The so-called Islamic State terrorist group has claimed responsibility for multiple attacks on the capital in recent months, including horrific attacks on educational institutions that killed as many as 50 people, most of them students.

Ye s t e r d a y ’s a t t a c k s h a p - pened a day after IS militants hit the capital with a barrage o f mo r t a r s h e l l s , k i l l i n g a t least one civilian and injuring a second, amid a countrywide surge in violence.

The extremist group claimed responsibility on its affiliated Amaq News site, saying it fired ten Russian-made Katyusha rockets toward the capital's Hamid Karzai International Airport.

Three shells hit the airport, while the other rounds landed in residential areas of the city, according to the Afghan Interior Ministry.

V i o l e n c e i n A f g h a n i s t a n has spiked in recent months despite Taleban and Afghan government negotiators meeting in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar to hammer out a peace deal that could put an end to decades of war.

The Taleban has waged bitter battles against IS fighters, particularly in IS strongholds in eastern Afghanistan, while continuing their insurgency against Afghan government forces.

In southern Kandahar province yesterday, the Taleban claimed an air strike by government forces killed at least 13 civilians in the Arghandab district.

A spokesman for the provincial governor, Bahir Ahmadi, denied that government forces were behind the explosion, but claimed that seven civilians were killed when Tale - ban fighters accidentally let a bomb go off in the area on Saturday night.

The area of the blast in Kandahar is remote and difficult to reach, and Taleban and government accounts of the civilian deaths could not immediately be confirmed.

A Us-based institute warned last week that there had been a dramatic increase in air strikes carried out by Afghan government forces between July and

September this year, leading to a sharp rise in civilian casualties.

The Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs, a research centre at Brown University, said in its report that 70 Afghan civilians were killed in the third quarter of this year, compared with 86 killed in the first six months of 2020.

I n i t s r e p o r t , t h e i n s t i t u t e a l s o s a i d t h a t , f r o m 2 0 17 to 2 0 19, c iv i l i a n d e a t h s d u e to US and allied forces air strikes in Afghanistan dramatically increased.

In 2019, air strikes killed 700 civilians – more than in any other year since the beginning of the war in 2001 and 2002.